Letters: Strong Navy and Air Force

Sat, 05/30/2009 10:34 AM  |  Reader's Forum

The history of why the Army (TNI-AD) is dominant within the Indonesian Military (TNI) can be traced back to the time when Indonesia was fighting for its independence in 1945-1950.

Since at the time the enemy we were facing was on land, rather than offshore, it was logical that it was the land-based force (the Army) which stood in the front line, with support from the militia (Laskar) and people as a whole, against the enemy. Not to mention the fact that we did not yet have any resources whatsoever to build a Navy and Air Force.

Unfortunately, as time passed and we could not find an enemy on land any more, especially after the large-scale separatist movements in several regions in Indonesia were quelled in the first half of the 1960s, the domination of the Army was maintained.

This became worse when Soeharto took the office in 1968, when he put his most loyal Army officers to work in practically every walk of life in Indonesia, which caused the Army's grip on Indonesia to become even stronger. Even after the reform era, when the Army was forced to pass power to the civilian government and went back to barracks, it still enjoyed a dominant position in the military.

As evidence, the number of soldiers and the budget for the Army is still the largest, followed by the Navy in second place and the Air Force at the bottom, again despite the fact that Indonesia is an archipelagic country that badly needs a strong Navy and Air Force.

The Army also maintains its territorial commands which have been acting as parallel government agencies, since there are territorial commands at the provincial (Kodam), regency (Korem) and city (Kodim) levels, right down to the village (Koramil) level.

The catastrophe of the Air Force's C-130 Hercules recently, plus the case in Ambalat where the Navy had to intercept a Malaysian Navy ship that was intruding into our territorial waters, plus fish-stealing cases by foreign seafarers in Indonesian seas, or airspace intrusion by foreign jet fighters and civilian aircraft alike, should be a wake-up call for the next President.

He or she should dare to declare, with popular support, that Indonesia is an archipelagic country that needs a strong Navy and Air Force to defend it from intruders. It would be very difficult for those intruders to try to breach our territorial seas and airspace if we had a modern, efficient and sufficient weaponry system at sea and in the air supported by professional officers, which would function as a strategic deterrent.

Therefore, with the budget of more than Rp 30 trillion (US$2.8 billion), which is already huge, taking into account it constitutes only one grade lower than the budget allocated for education, the next president should prioritize the development of the Navy and Air Force to defend Indonesia's interests, without necessarily increasing the military budget.

But the question is whether the next president will dare to do this, or even want to do this, as he or she will be surrounded by retired army generals who, of course, will not want to see the Army put at priority number three, as it will reduce the number of personnel and their budget.

But if the fact that Indonesia is the biggest archipelagic country on earth, with almost five million square kilometers of territorial waters and 17.000 islands, is taken into account, the next President should not hesitate for a single minute to decide that Indonesia needs a strong Navy and Air Force to defend Indonesia's interests from possible foreign intruders. Let's see.

Ferry Akbar Pasaribu
Jakarta

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